


Lake Family Angst

by im_the_king_of_the_ocean



Category: Trollhunters (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Family Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 08:30:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17200100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/im_the_king_of_the_ocean/pseuds/im_the_king_of_the_ocean
Summary: A small collected of angsty scenes in the lives of the Lake family





	1. Right Here

**Author's Note:**

> Scene 1: James didn't abandon his family, he was eaten by Bular and became a ghost

James could never stand to see his wife crying.She was his _wife_.He _loved_ her.This was just—it was torture!That’s what it was.

“I’m right here,” he whispered to her.“ _Right here_.”But she couldn’t hear him.Or see him.She never had.Not since…

He’d gotten a flat tire on his commute back from work in Los Angeles.He’d stopped on the side of the road.Went to retrieve his spare from the trunk of his car.He’d heard a roar, some kind of wild animal or something, but that wasn’t unusual really.Different kind of beasts roamed the Arcadia Woods.He’d gone hiking in them since he was a boy.James hadn’t thought he had anything to fear.

He didn’t remember the attack.At least not all of it.He remembered being grabbed.Squeezed.Pain.Something inside him _cracking_ , but he’d figured it was only a broken rib and his wife was a doctor.Broken bones could be healed, she always said.He’d kicked and kicked and _escaped_ the beast anyway.Run.He hadn’t stopped running until he reached home.At the time, he’d been less concerned with how that was possible and more relieved with just reaching safety.

It didn’t occur to James until he’d gotten inside and Barbara had looked right through him that he’d died.That he’d never escaped the monster.

That he was a ghost.

He hadn’t believed it at first.He’d talked to Barbara.His son, Jim.Tried to get them to see that he was _right there_.Eventually escalated to trying to cause things to move or happen in the house, but he wasn’t that type of ghost.He was just a specter.One who could only watch.And he did.

He watched as his wife and son grew worried that he’d never come home.Watched as they cried over him.Watched as Barbara, with help from the neighbors, went to search for him.

James had pleaded with whatever forces that be that they’d at least find his car, recognize that something horrible had happened to him.That he would never, never in a thousand years, just up and leave his family.

They didn’t.The neighbors began to whisper.Cheating.Another woman.A better job.A better life.

James could have handled that.Those idiots didn’t matter anyway.But then.Then _Barbara_ began to believe the whispers.

He’d sat with her every night when she cried over him.He knew it would never do anything.That she had no way of knowing he was there.But he’d hoped that, whatever presence he had left, she could still feel it.

Until the night she’d wiped the tears from her eyes and cursed his named.Cursed him for leaving her.For breaking her heart.For leaving their _son._ She’d gone into Jim’s room, took him in her arms, and told him they would just have to take care of each other now.Dad didn’t care about them.They didn’t need him to be happy.

James screamed that night, but no one could hear him.


	2. Decimaar Blade Corruption

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scene 2: Barbara gets corrupted by the Decimaar Blade

“MOM!”Jim felt a rush of relief when he saw Barbara.She hadn’t been home when he’d gotten back after the evacuation nor had she returned while he talked with Strickler and Nomura.That wasn’t too unusual, her shifts tended to run late after all.But now she’d been gone over a day and a call to the hospital confirmed that she’d missed her last shift.That was definitely odd, so it was relieving to see her.

Jim rushed up to his mother.His intention to hug her.“I was worried.You weren’t answering any calls and…” he looked up at her face.He saw her eyes.“Mom?”

Barbara laughed, but it sounded nothing like her laugh.Her laugh was a lighthearted sound, a joyous one that rose up from the gut.This laugh was a sinister.It warped Barbara’s voice into something nearly unrecognizable.

“You should have kept a closer watch on your loved one, Trollhunter.”It was Gunmar who spoke out of Barbara’s mouth, that Jim knew.His mother’s eyes glowed the same eerie aqua that Draal’s had after being touched by the Decimaar Blade.“Now she will be used against you again and again.” 

Barbara’s hand rose, one of Jim’s kitchen knives held tightly in its grasp.

“Fight or die.Either way it is a suitable fate for the one that killed my only son.”

* * *

“Mom!Mom, fight it!I know you’re still in there!You have to fight him!”Jim dodged a swipe of the kitchen knife in Barbara’s hand.“ _Please_.You have to still be in there!”

Gunmar answered, “Your mother is gone.I will show you how she screamed.”

The scream pierced the night.It was completely Barbara’s voice.Gunmar laughed as Jim winced and covered his ears with his hands.

“The human woman was weak, Trollhunter.”Gunmar made Barbara lunge forward and swipe with the knife again.“She fell easily.She did not deserve her life.”

“NO!”Jim yelled.“Fight me!Not her!You said you wanted to kill me with your own two hands.Come at me, Gunmar!Not her.NOT MOM!”

Gunmar attacked.Jim dodged.Instinctively he called forth Daylight.He prepared a counter attack.He swung the massive sword up.Jim looked at Barbara’s face.His arm shook.Jim faltered.He didn’t want to do this.He couldn’t do this.She was _mom_.He couldn’t kill his own mother.

“Please, mom.Fight him.”Jim’s voice was soft.He trembled.“I can’t fight you.I can’t.”He dropped Daylight, even as Gunmar had Barbara charge at him again.

The death blow didn’t come.

Jim looked up.Barbara loomed above him, one arm arched with the knife prepared to strike.It quivered in her grasp.Her entire body trembled.Jim could see her breathing heavily.The tears silently streaming down her face.And then her clenched hand opened and she dropped the knife onto the grass.Jim stared at his mother.He watched as her whole body shuddered.Her eyes closed.She dropped to her knees. 

“Mom?”

He wasn’t sure what to do.Her eyes were squeezed shut.Maybe she had actually broken free.Jim wanted to hope.But if Draal hadn’t been able to, could she really?

“Mom?”

“I’m sorry.”It was her voice.Barbara’s voice.Not Gunmar’s.“I’m so so sorry.I-I didn’t want to.He was in my head.”She looked at Jim, her eyes thankfully her own.“You’re my son.I love you.I couldn’t…” Tears streamed down her face.“I’m so sorry.”

Jim wrapped his arms around his mother.“It’s ok.”He hugged her tightly.“It’s ok, you’re free now.”Then, suddenly, he was crying too.He buried his face against her and sobbed.He felt her arms embrace him and, for a moment, nothing else mattered.


	3. Contemplation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barbara contemplates leaving when Jim is very young.

Barbara Lake never drank.Not, as most assumed, because she was too much of a Mom for that.But because there were some secrets she didn’t trust her inebriated self to keep.Secrets that could never, under any circumstances, get out.

Barbara loved her son.She did not regret him.

She did regret his father.If given the opportunity, she would go back in time.Make a different choice, scream at her younger self that she needed to leave that man before things really set in and she’d be trapped with him for years.

She knew such a choice would mean Jim never existed.But, and this part was the secret, sometimes that didn’t bother her.

Once when Jim was two, she’d come home to find him screaming and crying as all two year olds did when something was wrong and no one was fixing it.James was passed out on the couch, high off some drug or another (a recent development then).She’d stared at them before going back out to her car.

Barbara had sat behind the wheel for twenty minutes, debating just leaving.Driving away.Never coming back.Never having to see the man she now detested again.Never having to see the child she regularly told herself wasn’t a mistake again.She would be free.

Before any of that she’d been young, hopeful.A dreamer with thoughts of changing the world.

Now she got constant reminders that pregnancy and motherhood had left her perpetually tired while she spent hours trying to stretch their funds to pay all the bills.

Jim loved her.He wanted to take care of her.Sometimes she suspected that he knew.That she’d slipped up.That something had slipped out when she was tired.She saw the worry in his eyes.

None of this is your fault, she wanted to tell him.Your mother loves you.She does.

Even if you stole her life.


End file.
